An interesting read from NACS Daily as it speaks of Wal-Mart stores using a “machine” to count their currency as opposed to an employee. Nobody wants to see lost jobs, however our ‘machines’ can greatly improve the bottom line. Running a business is hard. Running a small business is even harder.

“Small Business” is a term that I believe is relative. I remember years ago my friend owned a 79′ Chris Craft Yacht and his young son felt oh so proud that his daddy had such a HUGE boat. But when my friend took his boat to Miami the young son said,

“Daddy! Look at that boat – it’s so BIG”.

Mr. H said “Son, there’s always a bigger boat”.

This is true for so many things. There’s always a bigger business, a bigger store or a bigger budget. The goal is to be successful no matter the size of your business.

So, what’s the point in all of this? Like Wal-Mart, don’t pay an employee to do a job that can be done [in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost] by a machine. The machine you need for your business is backOffice™ Software from Insight Retail Software.

Do NOT have an employee spending hours………..

receiving an order from your vendor – use our EDI Module.

entering and attempting to submit data to Altria for Scan Data Incentive – use our Scan Data Service

entering and attempting to submit data to RJR for Scan Data Incentive – use our Scan Data Service

changing 100’s of Cigarette prices one at a time – use our GROUP CHANGE feature

Call Chris @ 518-633-4111 x 108 for more information.

SO MAYBE THE ROBOTS REALLY ARE COMING

Increasingly, more retailers are automating certain workplace tasks.

July 20, 2017

​NEW YORK – When a Walmart store began using the Cash360 machine to count currency, and digitally deposit the money at the bank, the retailer also replaced a task previously assigned to a human, who made $13 an hour counting cash and tracking the accuracy of the store’s book, writes the Wall Street Journal.

“They think it will be a more efficient way to process the money,” the employee, who has worked with Walmart for a decade, told the news source.

Nearly 4,700 of Walmart’s U.S. stores have a Cash360 machine, notes the Journal, which is making thousands of positions obsolete. Employees whose job function has been replaced by the machine have moved to other positions or left the company. “The role of service and customer-facing associates will always be there,” Judith McKenna, Walmart’s U.S. chief operating officer, told the news source, adding, “there are interesting developments in technology that mean those roles shift and change over time.”

Meanwhile, some economists say that many retail jobs can and should be automated. A 2015 Citi Research report found that two-thirds of U.S. retail jobs are at “high risk” of disappearing by 2030. “The primary predictor for automation is how routine a task is,” said Ebrahim Rahbari, an economist at Citi Research. “A big issue is that retail is a sizable percentage of the workforce.”

The Journal writes that self-checkout lanes “can replace cashiers. Autonomous vehicles could handle package delivery or warehouse inventory. Even more complex tasks like suggesting what toy or shirt a shopper might want could be handled by a computer with access to a shopper’s buying history, similar to what already happens online today.”

Automation is filtering through the retail industry. For example, Home Depot has self-checkouts in most stores and is testing handheld scanners for larger items like lumber. “We want to simplify the stores so that we can free up our associates…so they can focus on selling,” Carol Tomé, CFO of Home Depot, told the Journal.

CNBC also reports that half of American jobs are at risk from automation, according to a new study by Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research. “How Vulnerable are American Communities to Automation, Trade, and Urbanization?” combines several recent studies on employment trends to present a stark view of the future job situation for certain parts of the United States, notes the news source.

Google Chrome is a great browser, but it’s not great to your laptop’s battery. The more tabs you have open, the quicker your computer will run out of juice (although at a certain point, one more tab won’t make a difference for your already tanked battery, as a WIRED writer found out during a 2013 test). Now, Google is trying to fix the problem. The new version of Chrome dramatically reduces the percentage of CPU (central processing unit) your computer uses while running a large number of tabs in the browser. The result? Greater battery life and faster performance, according to Ars Technica UK.

Previously, you could download an extension like One Tab, which collapses all your open tabs into a list of links to reduce memory usage, but sometimes, you just need to be able to toggle between tabs while the pages are still loaded—especially if you’re working on a research project.

Chrome 57 increases how much the browser throttles background tabs, meaning it limits the amount of CPU that the tab can use. After 10 seconds of being in the background (so not the tab you’re actively looking at), Chrome limits how much processing power a tab can use to about 1 percent of each processing core, improving battery life. However, this doesn’t apply to some types of web pages, like those playing music.

As Sebastian Anthony writes for Ars Technica:

The Chromium team says it’s seeing ’25 percent fewer busy background tabs’ with the new throttling mechanism in place. Anecdotally, after updating to Chrome 57 and with about 20 tabs open, my laptop feels a lot more responsive. Switching between tabs feels a little quicker, and there seems to be less input lag when typing or otherwise interacting with the browser. I haven’t tested battery life yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a significant improvement.

By 2020, Google plans to completely suspend background tabs from updating, rather than letting them continue running and using up CPU, a move that will likely increase battery life significantly. For now, however, Google estimates that Chrome 57 has led to 25 percent fewer busy background tabs.

You can update your browser by going to “About Google Chrome” in your taskbar.

A Chevron gas station in Seattle uses its sign to entertain customers, rather than inform.

March 28, 2016

​SEATTLE – Usually signs are in the business of letting potential—and current—customers know about sales, special events and other information related to the company. Most convenience stores use outdoor signage to highlight specials and products, but the Wallingford Chevron gasoline station and convenience store has taken a different tack: humor.

For more than a decade, this station’s sign has posted amusing sayings to the delight of customers and residents. The genesis of the humorous postings is traced back to when the owners replaced an auto repair shop with a convenience store. To get the word out about the change, the owners hit on the idea of entertaining signage, the News Republic reports.

Popular messages include:

Ban pre-shredded cheese—make America grate again.

If attacked by a mob of clowns, go for the juggler.

When it’s raining cats & dogs, don’t step in a poodle.

A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

Hold the door open for a clown. It’s a nice jester.

Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

The past, present & future walk into a bar. It was tense.

I child-proofed my house but the kids still get in.

If pride comes before a fall, humility should come by winter.

I checked into the hokey-pokey clinic & I turned myself around.

The station has a dedicated Facebook page for the Wallingford Sign with photos of its most popular ones.

It’s Spring! That means spring forward, change the batteries on the smoke detectors and BACKUP YOUR DATA. Backing up your data is like flossing your teeth. You don’t have to floss them all – just the ones you want to keep.

The proposed 2014 federal budget could mean bad news for c-store and retail stores who sell cigarettes and tobacco. The proposed budget includes a 94-cent per pack levy increase on cigarettes, with a comparable increase on all other tobacco products. The tax is expected to generate about $78 billion over the next ten years, but will undoubtedly add challenges for c-store owners who already struggle in the world of tobacco retailing. Learn More Here.
Luckily, backOffice™ can make this transition a little easier. With our Group Change feature, we make it easy to select all of your cigarettes or tobacco products at once and change your prices to reflect the tax increase. Group Change is perfect for “across the board” price changes like this one, and is a huge time saver compared to changing each price individually.

If this tax ends up affecting your sales, and in turn your inventory levels, we’ve got you covered! Reorder using our “Order Based On Sales” feature over any time period, and backOffice™ will reorder your products based on quantity sold, making sure you always have what you need. Just another way to help you run your business more effectively, be successful, and Do Better.

A new customer to Insight reported that backOffice™ just saved him $280 because as he was adding in a purchase order from Lay’s he realized they were not giving him the items at the agreed upon sale price so he was actually selling the items below his cost.

Want your business to DO BETTER? Visit http://insightrs.com for more information and give us a call at 518.633.4111